Our 23rd annual toy safety report, “Trouble in Toyland,” highlighted the Silly Fish Squirter toy, which had 400 times the amount of the chemical DINP allowed by law. DINP has been shown to have significant developmental and reproductive health effects.
Unfortunately, the Act doesn’t go into effect until February, so toy manufacturers were under no requirement to take these products off shelves for the 2008 holiday shopping season, resulting in unsafe toys being sold at discount stores. The good news is that heading into the holiday shopping season, product recalls were down nearly 50 percent compared to 2007, the “year of the recalls.” But as our chief product safety advocate Ed Mierzwinski pointed out, it was the actions of large retailers, not beefed up enforcement, driving the decrease.

College students receive hundreds of credit card offers each year, and credit card companies continue to use food, giveaways and fast pitches to tempt students to sign up for credit cards on campus. Often without the blessing of school officials, according to our analysis.

Our research, which resulted in hundreds of media hits and favorable editorial coverage in the New York Times last year, indicates that college is beginning to seem like a pass/fail class in financial literacy.

Our Higher Education Program Director Chris Lindstrom testified in Congress and worked to educate students, college administrators and legislators about the dangers of these bait-and-switch deals. So far, six states have restricted the on-campus marketing of credit cards at public colleges.